'The wrong track'

NeoStem Raises Additional Funds from Principals of Suzhou Erye Pharmaceuticals Company Ltd. and U.S. Institutional and Private Investors, Bringing the Total Recent Financings to Over $15 Million; Funds Will Support Expansion Activities in the United Stat

NeoStem, Inc. (NYSE Amex: NBS) announced today that it has raised additional gross funds of over $4 million from institutional and private investors. These funds, together with the $11 million private placement from three Asia-based investors announced April 13, 2009, bring the total investment obtained by NeoStem in the past two and half months to over $15 million. In addition, affiliates of Suzhou Erye Pharmaceuticals Company, Ltd. have increased their overall investment in the Company to over $1,000,000. As part of its China expansion activities, NeoStem is anticipating, subject to approval of its shareholders, on closing before year end on the acquisition of a 51% interest in Suzhou Erye through a merger with its current 51% owner.

The funds will be used to support NeoStem's continuing initiatives in VSEL (very small embryonic-like) stem cell technology licensed from the University of Louisville and to advance NeoStem's expansion activities in China, as well as other general corporate purposes

Stanford Discovery Pinpoints New Connection Between Cancer Cells, Stem Cells

A molecule called telomerase, best known for enabling unlimited cell division of stem cells and cancer cells, has a surprising additional role in the expression of genes in an important stem cell regulatory pathway, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The unexpected finding may lead to new anticancer therapies and a greater understanding of how adult and embryonic stem cells divide and specialize.

“Telomerase is the factor that accounts for the unlimited division of cancer cells,” said Steven Artandi, MD, PhD, associate professor of hematology, “and we’re very excited about what this connection might mean in human disease.” Artandi is the senior author of the research, which will be published in the July 2 issue of the journal Nature . He is also a member of Stanford’s Cancer Center.

In many ways, telomerase is the quintessential molecule of mystery—hugely important and yet difficult to pin down. Telomerase was known to stabilize telomeres, special caps that protect the ends

STEM CELLS Promotes Miodrag Stojkovic to Editor

AlphaMed Press, co-publisher of the journal STEM CELLS(R), the first journal in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine, has promoted Miodrag Stojkovic to Editor.

Professor Miodrag Stojkovic is Deputy Director of the Prince Felipe Research Centre and head of its Cellular Reprogramming Laboratory in Valencia, Spain. He led the team that first announced derivation of pluripotent human embryonic stem cells (hESC) from non-viable early human embryos that had stopped their cleavage. First published in STEM CELLS, this technique and stem cells derived with it are now being used to better understand and fight debilitating diseases.

Professor Stojkovic has long served the Journal, first on its editorial board, then as an associate editor, and most recently as its Co-Editor.

Editorial: Stem cell dollars flow

California's stem cell research institute has received little attention of late, and agency officials probably prefer it that way. But while the media have been off covering sex scandals involving mayors and astronauts, the Institute for Regenerative Medicine has been quietly preparing, for the first time in its two-year history, to dispense millions of public dollars for embryonic stem cell research.

The institute's oversight committee will meet in San Francisco this week to decide on roughly $24 million in grants for new stem cell researchers. While that may be pocket change compared with the $3 billion that voters authorized when they endorsed Proposition 71 in 2004, this initial research funding is historic, and other grants totaling about $100 million will soon follow this year.

Taxpayers curious about how their money will be spent can go to the institute's Web site -- www.cirm.ca.gov/publicsummaries/PublicList.html -- to see the 30 scientific proposals recommended for funding. The site also includes

First Human Receives Cardiac Stem Cells in Clinical Trial to Heal Damage Caused By Heart Attacks

Doctors at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute announced today the completion of the first procedure in which a patient's own heart tissue was used to grow specialized heart stem cells that were then injected back into the patient's heart in an effort to repair and re-grow healthy muscle in a heart that had been injured by a heart attack.

The minimally-invasive procedure was completed on the first patient on Friday, June 26.

The procedure is part of a Phase I investigative study approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and supported by the Specialized Centers for Cell-based Therapies at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. It is the first to use adult cells from a patient's own heart to attempt to heal injured heart muscle.